I'm known for my love of a good sad song - I always make a "now thats what I call the Samaritans" compilation every couple of years or so... need to update it though... While the Lengths would be up there and always included. i'm sure I could throw a few more into the ring! ,

I've always found The Streets' Dry Your Eyes to be an effectively blunt bit of post-pub melancholy even if I can do without anything else he/they've done. Likewise Tori Amos' Winter always makes me sad, but fuck only knows what it's about as the woman's wired to the moon - ditto China, also from her Little Earthquakes album which I quite like as I'm not old or middle class enough to like Kate Bush.

Almost all of Johnny Cash's American 4 album is pure class as he knew he wasn't long for his accounting by then and the songs about death and the wages of sin seemed to offer more agency (Trent Reznor has even gone on record as saying he considers the deeply personal Hurt to now be a Johnny Cash song), but this "cover" Cash did with his wife back in the 1990s before their health began to fail always gets me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sPc8ahc7iI

Also try and have a listen to the Beach Boys' A Day In the Life of a Tree if you can find it, and keep telling yourself that yes, they were totally serious.

Oi! I've already defended my dodgy music taste once this week.. can't make a habit of it... Saddest tori songs are mostly on Boys For Pele (my favourite album ever) - or are B-sides from (or written) around that time...

Guess there are times when we all need to share a little painAnd ironing out the rough spotsIs the hardest part when memories remainAnd it's times like these when we all need to hear the radio`Cause from the lips of some old singerWe can share the troubles we already know

Turn them on, turn them onTurn on those sad songsWhen all hope is goneWhy don't you tune in and turn them on

They reach into your roomJust feel their gentle touchWhen all hope is goneSad songs say so much

If someone else is suffering enough to write it downWhen every single word makes senseThen it's easier to have those songs aroundThe kick inside is in the line that finally gets to youand it feels so good to hurt so badAnd suffer just enough to sing the blues

Sad songs, they saySad songs, they saySad songs, they saySad songs, they say so much